Prehistoric International Tourism at Stonehenge

From tooth analyses of remains of prehistoric human burials near Stonehenge researchers have determined that some of the buried were from distant parts of Europe. Items suggesting that they were wealthy or of significant social status were buried with them. Among other things researchers speculate that Stonehenge was known as a place of magical healing.

According to Andrew Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology, Stonehenge would have been well known across Europe, and foreign visitors would have stared in amazement at the megaliths.

The findings were announced at a recent science symposium in London celebrating the 175th anniversary of the British Geological Survey.

Stonehenge has become so exciting in recent years. We're getting a better idea of what these prehistoric Britons were doing there, and the picture we're getting is much different than I think anyone suspected. It would have been quite the cosmopolitan site for its day, with people coming from all over the Isles, and apparently continental Europe, to visit Stonehenge and other sites in the surrounding landscape.

Yes, John. Discoveries at and near Stonehenge continue to produce surprises.
I wrote a book on Stonehenge, published in 1991, and updated it in 1997.
Now a revision of several chapters is warranted. So much fresh archaeology has been done in recent years.

Regarding what can be determined now days I am currently having my DNA analyzed and hoping that I did not contaminate the sample. I was overenthusiastic about putting saliva in the circled areas and a part of one of the circles washed out. If the sample is contaminated I hope they inform me instead of fudging the result. My grandparents on both sides were from Europe (and from entirely different areas) so I have a fairly good idea of what to expect.

Mine is I1b2a on my father's side and U3 on my mother's. It was suggested by the analysts that these haplogroups were carried to Britain by migrating hunter-gatherers before Britain was isolated by the seas.

Extra notes:
The rising seas made Britain into an island around 6500 BC.
'Cheddar Man' is a skeleton from a Cheddar cave dating from about 8000 BC.
The last Ice Age was ending around 10,000 BC.
The ice sheets had got no further south than about where the west-to-east run of the River Thames through North Wiltshire and Oxfordshire is now, and south of that was treeless tundra.